Monthly Archives: April 2012

We all die. We all also poop so the statement that we all die is about as shocking as that, when you boil it down. Also the sun will rise tomorrow.

I want to give very specific instructions here about what should happen when I finally pass but realize, “well fuck I’ll be dead” so do whatever you want to with my dead ass.

I’ll give guidance and hope it’s followed.

Let’s just launch into that list and see who is in charge of what …

Adrian Schulte and Sarah Leslie get to pick the music. I hope they fight over it, honestly I do, but they get to choose the tunes. Back off peeps, I decreed from up above they get the final say. If they pick anything by Celine Dion then that’s what it is. They are further authorized to tattoo my dead body but only with Gary Larson “Far side” tattoos … they know what that means.

They also have to pick a wake venue that equals slip-and-slide level awesome but also incorporates hot tubs. I suggest slip and slide into a hot tub but you’re both in charge.

yeah I have a woman I can turn too when I need a quick turnaround, original cleavage shot … don’t you?

Gina Gray I bequeath you ‘toplessness’. Meaning you don’t have to be topless but I demand, DEMAND in the sense that I will haunt every woman that disobeys this order, all the women be topless during my wake. Small tits, don’t care. Big tits, don’t care. Floppy tits, not an issue at all either. I want all tits on full display at my wake. Gina make this so. GG … you have awesome tits, be the only chick at the wake with a top on. You are authorized three other “exempt” rulings. Use them wisely.

Rob Gowen also has to follow Gina around the entire time wearing flip flops, boxer shorts and a brown tee-shirt with a bottle of hair gel demanding of everyone, “where is my hair gel.” This will make me happy as I look on from the ever-after.

Mike Gianeeeteee …. You sir will ensure everyone is drunk as shit.

If my grave isn’t muddy with beer (and piss) you fucked up.

Don’t fuck up.

Someone has to later donate me to a medical college. I want college kids who will later view my autopsied corpse to go “HOLY fuck those lungs are torn up. That is the most fucked up liver I ever saw and holy shit that’s a big dick! Which is also why I expect Ray Coley to … never mind.

Ruth Sternberg has to ensure my foreskin is reattached. If my foreskin cannot be located, she gets to direct a reenactment of that Monty Python skit where a ton of topless chicks chase a condemned man over a cliff. I suggest you get Rick Bumgardner to help with the camera work.

I also give Rick my collection of plastic army men and dinosaurs.

I expect Maggie and Alex to supervise it all, I suggest an elaborate system utilizing clipboards, reading glasses, annoying whistles and safety vests. Don’t forget disapproving looks when some lady shows up and refuses to be topless.

Darcy Debase, bet you didn’t see this coming, you have to cater it. I liked ribs. So it should be ribs. You should also be topless, figure it out.

Side note to Gina: There are no pasties allowed (Darcy will totally try to weasel out that way).

Gina already knows this. I’m just reinforcing the message.

Bron Berry has to show up and proclaim, “Holy boobs!” You also have to announce a best tits winner. From the crowd I mean.

Maggie and Alex will have to organize a best boobs contest, because that’s how I would have wanted it and because I just wrote that thing about Bron being a boobie judge and crap.

Dagmar, one year after my death, has to go online to buy something and surf for the highest price. If she finds the same spatula for sale for $20 and $40 she has to buy the $40 one. She also has to yell out during the wake, “That mother fucker fucked me again!” I’ll be giggling from the afterlife I assure you.

Val Henderson and Lynn Davis will print out every post on this blog and hand correct, with red pen, the untold millions of grammatical, spelling and WTF errors. They will then pass them out to the people in attendance. They’ll be topless so you won’t mind.

Mike Lavigne has to take over this blog. He also has to rename it, “Was that Todd dude a dick or what?” I’d suggest asking Jesse for ideas Mike.

Matt and Marni Sandberg have to proclaim loudly during the funeral while whatever Christian priest you all pick is talking, “I thought he was Jewish?”

Mel Raymond and Mellissa Novakovich are in charge of snark, turn it up to 11 ladies. They’ll understand why they were paired the minute they meet. Also fuck you both.

Chad Oliver gets my remote control helicopter IF he promises to annoy Amanda once a week with it.

Eric and Bianca get my beer fridge, full circle kids.

Little Edward Oliver gets a car. Nothing that exceeds like 30K IN TODAY’S prices so don’t be bankrupting my widow. Also if he doesn’t have one, his own computer.

Leila and Jill get all revenues from my many super top-secret iPhone game ideas. Hint they all suck and will garner like $2 at best.

Bucky, start raising funds now, this is gonna cost us. By us I mean you. I want a shit ton of hot tubs …

Put your books, phones, computers and iPads away … wait keep those last three so you can read this.

Look I only have an hour before the Preside … I mean the boss shows up.

What was going to be one of topics of discussion in Columbia before every Secret Service agent in Columbia was fired for failing to pay the going rate for a ‘Dirty Sanchez” with foreign hookers?

Was it:

A: How much is too much for a quality Columbian hooker?

B: Homeless puppies in Central and South America how do we solve the crisis?

C: A plea from Central and South American nations asking the United States to reevaluate its drug policy?

If you answered ‘A’ I want to party with you. If you answered ‘C’, you’re like me and god help you.

I knew about the conference before the scandal broke. I mean I read about the agenda and thought okay this will be good. I knew about it not because I’m a drug junkie hoping U.S. drug policies are relaxed but because I’m a news junkie.

The media isn‘t left, right or center. They’re not. They’re a business. They’re there to make money. The stories they cover and the ways they are covered are designed to attract readers, viewers or on the net, clickers.

They’ve also figure out that they have to cater to our idiocy, our base instincts and our lack of a desire to hear about anything more interesting than; shark kills swimmer, pretty white kid is missing and of course SEX!

This is why the news is “filled” with stories about Secret Service agents banging hot Columbian prostitutes and not, wait for it, WHAT THE FUCK the conference was about in the first place.

Which story, at the end of the day, is more important? Does the fact that some the secret service agents banged hookers really matter more than what our president discussed with the leaders of counties south of us?

If you picked the first one I hate you and will soon fly to your house to personally punch you.

That’s why I love news but hate everyone, including myself.

Before this story broke it was INTERESTING! Okay it wasn’t exactly interesting, but it was relevant. I mean it mattered.

I have a little problem with news apps! Also with bothering to read emails or listening to voice mails.

For all I know Venezuela gave Obama a “we’re sorry we’ve been dicks” Hallmark card, Raoul Castro offered to have open and free elections and Mexico announced it just discovered a shit-ton of oil and that whole illegal immigration problem the GOP keeps bitching about would soon be over.

Okay the last one is actually bad news for all involved but still it’s better information than a pissed off ‘woman of the night’ losing her shit in the hallway when some jackass refuses to pay her the agreed upon price. Also honey, get the money first. I thought that was in the hooker rule book.

The fact that men, with strong ‘type a personalities’, on business trips, fuck chicks that aren’t their wives is hardly news. The fact that the people that travel a lot, with the president mind you, whore around barely registers on my radar as news. It shouldn’t happen, and we should vet them better I agree, but it’s a sidebar news story at best.

What did the leaders of all these nations just south of us discuss? That’s the story.

You know the things that might have an impact on our lives.

It’s the pretty white girl missing/shark just attacked a person story … really it is.

And those suck. They always suck. They have the nutrional value (news wise) of a twinkie.

They also taste like twinkies, they are twinkie news items. They taste good, they are always fresh but they are really, really fucking useless.

Natalie Halloways = “News Twinkie”.

Natalie Halloway didn’t matter. You know it, I know it and that drunken bum on the corner knows it. For that matter that homeless guy with the “great pipes” didn’t fucking matter but at least he was treated as feature material and not news.

At the end of the day, when either Natalie Halloway’s disappearance or the Secret Service’s hooker breakdownapoloza , rode the high tide of the news wave, we missed out on important news.

I wake up at 6 a.m. and watch, in this order, Fox news followed by CBS and NBC news. Know what? They are exactly the same.

They are exactly the same because you, me and the people next to us suck. We love pointless news. What was the big story before the attacks of 9-11? Yeah, it was shark attacks off the coast of Florida, which are, if you read a bit, the most non-news event in the world.

Seriously only about 20 people die a year from shark attacks. You’re more likely to be fired as a U.S. federal employee than killed by a shark. Maybe that’s why it’s on the news, rarity.

Does it matter really to the greater good if a pretty 18-year-old white blonde girl is missing? Not at all. Does it matter? Should it be reported? Is it important? Yes of course but does it deserve top story coverage on every news network for weeks, months and (Madeleine McCann) years later?

Hell no!

And it’s always, fuck you I’m right here, ALWAYS pretty white girls. Okay maybe occasionally it a white child or a very attractive non-white person but if the media is so damned liberal why are they so racist and/or misogynist when it comes to missing persons.

Also I’m getting older and REALLY bitchy.

Here’s fun. Open Google, select the news category and type in missing white girl. Scroll down, drink in the results. Now type in, “missing African American girl”. Scroll down and realize that fuck the media doesn’t give two-shits about the left or right but only about what will get you to stick around so that the ad next to the story they did about that says “white teeth in just 7 days!” will get them the ad revenue they crave.

Charles Taylor’s conviction will make NBC, CBS, ABC and FOX’s news cycle tomorrow morning when I wake up. It might even be the top story. But by Monday it’ll be forgotten and I’ll still get to hear all about which Secret Service Agent resigned and which prostitute just signed a reality show contract for American TV.

It seems I broke the vacuum cleaner and, in so much as I was the one using it when it broke, it’s true. Broken vacuum cleaners aren’t, in and of themselves, very interesting or funny outside of vacuum cleaner repair crowds (hint: This update is going to ROCK to vacuum cleaner repair fans!). What is funny to me at least is that according to my lovely wife, I did this on purpose.

When I asked her why she thought I broke it on purpose and because any answer she gave had a 100% chance of being blogged about here, I discovered the following:

I broke it so I wouldn’t have to vacuum anymore

I broke it so I could go buy a new one and get out of grocery shopping

It could be fixed if only I knew more about how to replace small, lost plastic pieces that snapped off of a larger plastic piece

Also I’m a dick for taking notes while she answers me.

Actually she’s right. I love buying new household appliances and enjoy in ways you cannot imagine, tormenting them. That’s right refrigerator, I’m looking at you and you’re next!

My confession follows. I viciously and with great malice in my heart snapped its thin metal telescoping handle of a neck with glee. “Take that you time sucking beast, never again will you keep me from video games, beer drinking or sitting on my ass watching TV!”

You can picture me doing a victory dance around the broken machine in my boxers if you’d like. I know I am.

In reality the vacuum cleaner is about 10 years old and that’s about three more than I expected of it. It was held together during its last few months with duct tape, hope and prayers. It had the intake power of a lung cancer victim and finding replacement bags was becoming so difficult that I was starting to wonder if you could just empty the old bag. Also yeah, it had bags unlike the new modern kind.

It was time for a new vacuum.

When it did break Dagmar was off shopping and I was allowed to stay home during one of those, “okay you can stay here if you do x, y and z chores arrangements.

The dearly departed is on the right.

(Hint: to any male reading this that is newly married. Always take these deals. You’ll win with more free time in the end, basically because men usually do a half-assed job at house cleaning)

When it broke I did think, “aww crap she’s totally going to think I did this on purpose.” As if tossing a few hundred dollars on a vacuum cleaner was something I found “fun”. Meaning, I can predict her reaction, but I cannot explain it.

So basically there are three ways the Oliver household is getting a new vacuum cleaner, assuming the German equivalent of a Kirby salesman doesn’t show up in the next hour.

I go to the store and buy it (most preferred method)

She goes to the store and buys it (second most preferred method)

We go together to buy it (unmitigated disaster ensues)

The first two options are about as close to a tie as they can get in my opinion.

The “I go to the store and buy it” will be the most cost effective of the three options, note I didn’t say cheapest, I said most cost effective. If I go alone I’m going to straight up throw money at this problem. Do they have optional beer holders on this model? Great, add that to the bill please. What’s that, the vacuum will synch with my iTunes’s library for an extra $50, sure add that too. It can answer the phone via your blender, shit we need that! How have we lived without that? Point is I don’t want to ever have to do this again so if I spend big on it, in my mind, the damn thing can be used to clean up after my wake, and you fucker’s better make a mess at my wake. I totally wanna see, cause I’ll be watching, vomit and crap!

The second option has its own appeal in that I don’t have to have to get off my ass and continue in my duties as Judge “boobieprofessor69” at ratemyrack.com … I kid but I cannot describe to you how little interest I have in buying a vacuum. Does it plug and suck up dirt? Great I’ll take it. The downside of Dagmar buying it is easy. First she’s cheap sometimes and vacuum buying would be one of those times. She’d return home with 8 million other purchases besides the vacuum cause all of you girls do that.

The biggest lie of any marriage or partnership is when you ladies tell us men, I’m only going into the store for one thing … you are all filthy, filthy liars and you know it. Confess, I demand it.

So if she goes to buy it, the vacuum itself won’t cost much – I mean it will actively shock you while you use it but it only costs like $20 – but she’ll come home with four U-haul trailers full of crap I didn’t know we wanted let alone needed.

The third and final (as in it feels like death final) option is that we go buy it together. Oddly the purchase of the actual item was pretty straightforward. A decent, yet sans beer can holder, model that I’m relatively sure our dearly departed vacuum would approve of was had without much debate. But then it starts. The endless gathering, the wandering the aisles of the store, examining this Rachel Ray egg yolk separator or fingering that Martha Stewart ‘stick-up-your-butt floral display guide’.

Look honey we don’t need new towels. I know because you shoved them all in those decorative baskets that, while look good I admit, ensure we only use the same towels over and over again. The towels at the bottom of the baskets have never touched human skin for Christ’s sake. Screw it if we get new towels can we leave? No? If we get the towels can we at least leave this aisle?

All department stores should have waiter service that serve drinks. That would solve these crisis moments.

So in addition to a new vacuum holder we have a new trash can even though I thought our old one was just fine in that it well … held trash! I also have to now remember a new trashcan bag size when shopping.

There are things you can, after a certain number of years as a couple, predict about your significant other yet still not explain. I could, and did predict her reaction to the broken vacuum cleaner but I could not explain it, not for a million dollars could I do that. Her bizarre attachment to the device defies any logical explanation I can come up with. I mean sexual vacuum cleaner relationships are, if Google is to be believed, mainly a male phenomenon. And that sucks.

Certain things are just given preferential treatment here.

For instance when we lived in Italy we bought a very nice, very high-quality Italian leather sofa – mainly cause I was a huge fan of the band Cake back then but also because they’re known to last a lifetime. What did Mrs. Dagmar “I loved that vacuum more than you” Oliver do with great condition couch only seven years into its existence? Did you say she replaced it with some run-of-the-mill mass produced crap from Lazy-boy that will be lucky if it survives seven years let along a lifetime?

You’d of course be right.

So why is the death of the vacuum treated as if a dear family member has passed on and the couch is carelessly tossed into a room we never use? Hell if I know. Though oddly the vacuum did break in that room so maybe there’s a connection I’m not getting. Couch hates vacuum conspiracy theories aren’t as plentiful on the net as you’d hope.

Another example is it’s only in the last year or so that Dagmar’s relented and actually used the, brace yourself, dishwasher. That’s right for years Dagmar chose to wash every single glass, pot, pan, knife, fork and plate by hand.

I’d like to say I stood my ground and maintained that with a fully-functional dishwasher literally inches away I never washed dishes but we all know that truth … I washed me some fucking dishes. But the argument drove me nearly insane.

Gina and Dagmar maintain I take shitty photos of them. I maintain they had hot sexy bubble fights after this photo ...

They went like this.

Me: Just use the fucking dishwasher, its right there, fully-functioning and meant to free you of your domestic shackles.

Dagmar: No I don’t want to!

Me: They even have crap that makes sure the glasses don’t have spots on them. You just load it and press some buttons, magic happens, and presto-chango clean dishes …

Dagmar: Washing dishes relaxes me.

Me: If that’s true why are we arguing? Look maybe you should start doing the laundry by hand? Hell we can eliminate the electric bill if we just follow this to its natural conclusion.

Dagmar: I like to wash the dishes by hand!

I took to taking photos of her washing dishes in all kinds of situations. I have photos of her and GG washing dishes in Italy together because it became funny as hell to me to see her washing dishes when poor Josephine Cochran went through all that fucking trouble of inventing the first dishwasher.

This photo would have been a 9.9 and not a 9.8 at ratemyrack.com but I couldn't draw a set of boobs using her moles ... that kind of stuff counts.

GG … btw I want to be clear I voted you a solid 9.8 (because we all know a straight 10 is a kids vote) on ratemyrack.com despite what rival judge tits4life may have told you.

He’s such a hater.

Then magically in this house the dishwasher joined such modern devices as the television, the iron the FUCKING CLOTHES WASHER which is basically the same kind of thing.

I can’t explain it other than I just said fuck it, buy some dishwashing detergent and just do it yourself Todd.

No matter how well you know someone, no matter the level of your understanding, you can predict but you cannot always explain.

Ever heard about something happening and jumped to a conclusion as to why it happened only to later find out you were an idiot for ever thinking that?

Welcome to my everydayoftheweek.

Okay, it happens to everyone.

For example, You hear that Whitney Houston has died and you logically assume it’s because you wished a painful death on her because of that time you had to hear her song “the greatest love of all” 14 uberillion times in a row while synching a slide transition for some slideshow or another.

“I hope that fucking bitch is beaten with garden hoses while angry (are there any other kind) cannibals rip at her still living flesh!”

Then you find out she died having a glass of wine in the tub, which is basically how I want to go if you substitute wine with beer and tub with tons of naked hot chicks.

Or maybe, I know why Germany invaded France in both World Wars, the weather in Germany sucks and have you been to a French beach ever? Oh, so it wasn’t because of the weather or the beaches, shit.

We’ve all done it and I think the older you get the harder it is to realize you did it.

Which means of course, I just did it.

Sometime between 1990 and 1991 Dave Bixler (I think that was the name) handed me a book titled The Straight Dope. The gist of it is

also known as 'the dope'

the author, Cecil Adams (a fictional ‘world’s smartest man’ character) answered readers questions no matter how weird (why is poop brown) or conspiratorial (is the dull side of aluminum for food and the shiny side poisonous) or whatever.

Thus began my love affair with conspiracies and urban legends. I purposefully wait a few weeks before going to www.snopes.com so there will be several additions to the ‘what’s new’ tab. I love to read about how the government was behind the 9-11 attacks, or the fact that our president is a Muslim Kenyan Atheist and that aliens shot Kennedy with Cuban supplied CIA weapons and HOLY SHIT SOMEONE JUST STOLE MY KIDNEY … well you get the point.

I had no clue what a prima donna was to be honest — so shit, maybe I was one. To be fair the drill sergeant didn’t say, “Okay next week’s duty roster has been posted, we’re conducting physical training at 0630 tomorrow and Private Oliver, You’re a prima donna, dismissed.”

He meant all of us young aspiring U.S. military journalist and broadcasters … we were all prima donnas. Ofcourse this was said by the tough-grizzled drill sergeant in charge of a bunch of hopeful journalists and broadcasters, so there’s that.

Yes Drill Sergeant, I do have a question. What the hell is a Prima Donna? What's that? Do pushups? But that doesn't really ... awwww nevermind.

I heard it time and time again over my 20-year career. Fact or fiction (let’s be honest here its more fact). I heard it in different forms. Rumors flew that during the Public Affairs Officer’s Course the instructors taught it as fact. I was once told I would have been fired for some stunt or another but because I was a ‘creative journalist’ type the offense was forgotten and forgiven.

Fast forward (backwards?) to 2007 when I was told by my sergeant major that my beloved career field would for this day forward only take, as new inductees, people who were already non-commissioned officers from other military specialties. Only people like infantrymen, tankers, artillerymen and cooks, you know non-prima donnas, would be allowed into the career field.

It was obvious, to me at least, that some higher-up fucktard in the pentagon had grown tired of our prima donna shenanigans like posting a close up photo of your testicles to face book titled “me and the little guy” constituted “artistic expression” and that the career field needed a few more hardened vets that knew the value of a hard day’s work

All my love of urban legends and conspiracy theories went out the window.

A little background for four of the eight people reading this may help.

In the U.S. Army’s public affairs career field, the officers generally don’t become public affairs officers until they’re senior captains or junior majors. Thus when they graduate and become some commander’s public affairs officer, they’re generally two things. First they are the most junior guy on the commander’s staff rank wise and second they have the least practical experience of any staff member. This would seem bad but for the fact that they, at this point in their careers, understand a lot about how the Army and commanders staff’s work. Pair them with a public affairs non-commissioned officer that’s been in the career field for 7 to 10 years, and is ostensibly a master of the nuances of the career field and you should have a great relationship.

In my own experience, paired as a young staff sergeant with a freshly graduated major, it was a good yin to yang. I knew the basics of a broadcast news and I had mastered (or so I thought) the print side of things. MAJ Stanford Angion, my PAD commander, understood how a brigade staff worked.

It was hand in prima donna glove love time … cue porn music.

So when I heard that they were going to only allow into the career field enlisted soldiers that were just as new to the career field as the officers, did I?

A: Understand that the military as a whole is a large, complex organization that doesn’t give two shits about my opinion?

B: Concede that the accusation of forces into our military is an ever changing goal line, more so in time of war?

C: Reach back into my bag of “those assholes think we’re prima donna’s and they’re going to fuck us all ‘cause shit should never change and also change is bad!

If you guess c, go have a drink … I’ll wait.

To my own credit I did, before writing this, question my own conclusions. So, I turned to, among other people, Master Sergeant Mike Lavigne who during that time frame understood the nuances and realities that drove the decision.

He looked at me like I was dropped a lot as a child (I WAS NOT, I was just shaken a lot, like a martini I hope) when I asked him if what I thought had any basis in reality. He carefully explained the Army’s total acquisition system where the Army (I basically zoned out during these conversations … for all I know a wizard with a carrot up its butt declared it so) used force projection numbers for future years to arrive at the conclusion that only cross training Soldier’s should be allowed into the Public Affairs field.

To be fair Mike did say, yeah I can see where you might think that. So there, I’m not a total idiot!

This was meant to be a rant, a snarky rant, not about many of the newly inducted NCOs into the PA career field over the last five years because they are innocent, but about the Army’s badly thought out process of moving the career field in that direction. But the conversations with people that actually know what the hell they’re talking about kinda, well definitely, took the wind out of those sails.

Finally I don’t want this to come across as a “if you just entered this career field as a NCO you suck” message. I don’t. I can, mentally get to where you are at. You just left some career field or another where you were top of your game only to land in our personal little viper pit. Someone might have told you that your news release was the biggest piece of shit they ever read and that you should hang yourself or that your news spot for AFN was so fucking bad you’re now the hand-receipt holder for the bathroom.

You don’t suck. Well you do, but we all do … the American Forces Network has a large room filled with broadcasters that they referred to as the shark tank. Not because they have a love for aggressive fish but because on both the print and the broadcast side of things it’s expected that you’re going to have your products ripped to shreds and that you’ll rip others to shreds. Fun stuff.

You, I assume picked this career field cause you thought it would be fun and great place to do some creative exploring. To understand that a sentence isn’t always a cut and dry definition and that access to really good broadcasting equipment is FUCKING awesome gift. If the story comes back soaked in red pen blood, welcome to the team. It happens, always. If your editing on the video is raped by the boss, it will happen again, again and again. It’s always a team effort you don’t own it and those sharks make it better …

If you joined for the low cut off scores and the promotion rates. I hope you are beaten to death with hoses while happy cannibals rip your still living flesh from your body.

While making fun of America is fun (and generates hate mail, added bonus) I don’t want anyone to have the impression Europe, specifically Germany, is without its quirks.

So let’s jump right in shall we …

The music is bizarre.

Just your typical German pub

Its 5:30 p.m. on a Friday and you and your co-workers are meeting for a ‘let loose some steam’ beer at your favorite German pub. One minute, while waiting on your friends to show up, you’re grooving on some cool, never before heard pop song on the radio desperately hoping your soundhound application will let you know who the artist is and the next goddamn minute it’s fucking 1975 and Paul Anka is ‘having my baby’ and I’m having a shit fit because why the hell would those two songs ever be played back to back?

Welcome to European radio.

German radio seems, to my American ears at least, to make no damned sense at all. One minute you’re listening to newest, coolest song ever and the next minute you’re in the middle of a Twisted Sister revival.

Pick one goddamn type of music German radio station and STICK to it!

The toilets are well …

Before I wrote this part about German toilets, while planning the next few paragraphs in my head, a little voice said, “are you SURE that’s the reason they are designed that way? Yeah we’ve always been told that’s the reason but do we KNOW that’s the reason?”

Let me explain.

Poop talk follows and I’m sorry.

German toilets are designed with a small shelf that literally catches your poop for, and I’m not kidding, health reasons.

Okay I understand that’s a wiki stub and I understand what the note “citation needed” means but if anyone has a different explanation I’m all ears. Maybe those shelves are for books, papers, printed out blog posts from this site so that critics can say, “I literally shit on what you just wrote!” Maybe it’s so when … look it’s called a poop shelf for a reason.

And at a certain level it’s another example of those damned clever and practical Germans. That’s really kind of brilliant.

A good friend of mine, an American that utilizes German health care system, said he loves his relationship with

Well you wouldn't want to put your car keys on this kind of shelf ... photo swiped from this very cool blog The Gringa Trail is pretty funny

his doctor. It’s very personal, he explained. The doctor knows him so well he’s even, according to my friend, able to tell when he’s stressed out or just isn’t feeling that well.

My doctor, who I also like, starts a stop watch I think when I arrive.

Doctor: What’s the problem? (clicks stop watch)

Me: My toe hurts

Doctor: Broken toe

(Tape, tape, tape)

Doctor: NEXT! New clinic record bitches, less than 45 seconds!

Point is German health care may indeed allow for conversations about poop formation, color and for all I know location on the shelf.

German Patient: I’m not pooping center poop shelf anymore.

German Doctor: What, this is terrible!

German Patient: I know!

German Doctor: Poop misalignment is a leading cause of … okay who are we kidding, you want a few days off right.

German Patient: shit you’re right

German Doctor: Fine but let’s leave the profanity out of it.

As clever and practical as that may be sometimes my American brain takes over I want to poop into a 50 gallon drum where I will never me confronted face to face with what was, three hours ago, a great bratwurst and 3 beers.

Do I need to tell anyone here what having poop underwater vice exposed to the air does for the, shall we say bouquet?

If there are no closets, what the hell do gay Europeans come out of at the age of 23?

I live in a four bedroom, hell if you want to get a bit creative five or six bedroom house. That’s right America, while sucking off of your hard-earned tax dollars (take that Kat … scroll down to the comments) I’m over here living in a fucking mansion with servants, a Mitt Romney inspired car elevator and

… okay no I don’t

While I’ve heard that the reason European houses don’t, as a rule, have closets is that the ‘closet is considered a room for tax purposes. I doubt that’s true but the point is their houses generally don’t have closets, not the way we think of them at least.

So how many bedrooms do I have? Two. I’ve lived in 3 houses in Germany and one Italy, total “no shit that is a closet and not a room closets” in those houses? None.

Actually it looks pretty cool ...

So what happens? What do you do? Those extra rooms, they become the closets. One, likely two rooms become places where all your clothes go. That and you buy the European version of a closet, a shrunk, a chest or just a giant against the wall thing. Which again on some level makes sense, you go to a store and you buy an item that goes up against the wall of your house and you pick one that makes sense to you. But I gotta say the American system just makes SHIT easier.

Kitchens and light fixtures

We American military and government civilians living in Europe lead sheltered lives here*. We do. People can and do, sadly, spend entire tours here venturing no further into German culture than their drive to work. Like any part of the world, except that one place (you know the one), Europe is steeped in culture and filled with mystery and awe behind every twist and turn of the road.

Mysteries like why the fuck Europeans insist on raping the kitchen and every light fixture in the house when they move.

European kitchens are modular kinds of things, unlike our ‘fuck you I’ll get moved with you remodel or burn me down for the insurance money’ American kitchens. If you rent, or buy , a German house you start with a blank room. Hot and cold water hook ups coming in and a drain hole in the wall for water going out, electrical outlets and that’s it. No countertops, hell nothing even to hold up a counter top. I mean I get taking your fridge, your dishwasher and if you’re really pleased with it your stove but literally EVERYTHING?

So if you’re putting in a modular kitchen, think this through, it’s likely purchased from Ikea and where do you think on the durability lies on a scale of one to 10? If you guess somewhere around a knob falls off if harsh language is used around it — have a beer, you’re right.

Yes, yes there are gourmet European kitchens and people that have KICK ASS kitchens but the crap we end up renting usually has no drawer that ever closes quite right and the counter height was designed for use by midget dwarfs.

Don’t get me started on light fixtures. Europeans when moving take them when they move. I have negotiated with at least two previous tenants about purchasing their light fixtures and discovered that men left to buying light fixtures don’t really give a shit. The conversation goes this way, “and I paid 5 euro for that light, and 6 for that one and oh boy we got crazy in this room, that fixture is 10 euro.” It ended with me handing over 50 euro because I really don’t want to spend a day buying and hanging up new light fixtures either.

*We’re sheltered here because we generally have access through our base housing office to landlords that understand we’re retarded/lazy Americans and want our kitchens to have counters and our rooms to have light.

Everything is FUCKING expensive

The average cost of a pint of beer in the United States $1.83, the average cost of in Germany $3.37* and HOLY SHIT THAT’S A LOT OF MONEY!

Putting aside the discussion of which currency is stronger than the other and ignoring the general idiocy of people like this model, one euro is at the moment of this writing is worth about $1.32. Meaning something that costs €100 ends up costing $132.00 is good hard American cash.

Then there is VAT. The Value added tax in Germany is 19% which goes toward such programs as …

(left for three hours to play Skyrim)

Join my guild!

Stupid Grey Beards, those guys suck.

Value added taxes are used to subsidize poop shelves and doctor patient discussions of poop for all I know. Point is crap here is expensive.

Yes, I know, I know you can and should use a simple and easy to use VAT form to avoid the tax**. But for a purchase under like $100 it’s not worth it. I tried it at my favorite bar. The tab was €46 (or $60 with VAT no tax saves me an amazing $11 dollars).

Me: Can I use a vat form?

Hans: Fuck you Todd, €60

Me: That’s like 11 dollars!

Hans: Do we have to do this every time dude? Just pay the tab.

Me: Well then FUCK your tip

Hans: Dude stop tipping in Europe, you look like a douche every time you do it.

Me: I hate you.

Hans: See you tomorrow?

Me: Of course.

* The German beer verses U.S. beer price, while fun, was gathered through a ‘shit ton’ of retarded Google searches … your own price may very

** VAT avoidance IS easy in Germany. In Italy you have to leave your first born child at the store, drive to Rome (which is a bitch from Sicily) sacrifice a goat and then two-years later your purchase arrives at your door, after you’ve moved. They also keep your kid.

I had hoped this was going to be the third and final Germansauna story but I think there’s going to be a fourth.

Yeah, there’s going to be a fourth. Besides being (99% of the time) a great relaxing day they can be (1% of the time) hysterical … to me, and hopefully to you.

While I’ve had some rocking days here at Hadafewbeers.com (thanks for all the Facebook shares by the way) where there were TONS of daily hits … the series about being naked in a German sauna still gets a lot of hits every damn day. While ‘Merica, F’yah generated a lot of hits the sauna stories continually get hits albeit in smaller numbers . On days, hell weeks, I don’t post … in the search terms that word press provides on the stats page, German sauna is still the strongest, all around, hit generator.

Which leads me to believe there’s a lot of perverts reading this, awesome.

The other two sauna stories for those that missed them are located here (part one) and here (part two).

Last time I posted on the topic I promised the following in this update.

Gay man hits on me in the sauna and the same gay man hits on me later story follow up.

What happens exactly when the whole place goes nude.

Three erections

Yes, Dagmar, okay I was looking at those girls cause they were hot

The Pee-Pee Patrol

Exhibitionist girl

Sailor man’s penis

We’ll get to the first three this time and the last four next time … I’ll even add in a bonus, what happens when you meet a fellow American at the sauna.

Finally Dagmar and I have gone to the sauna I’m betting a few hundred times and these are the exception not the rule to the place. If you’re ever in Europe and thinking of hitting a traditional European sauna nothing like this will happen to you, but if it does tell me all about it.

So here we go.

Gay man hits on me in the sauna and the same gay man hits on me later story follow-up.

This is the funniest trip to the sauna and also it’s the one that makes Dagmar cry with laughter whenever it comes up in conversation. Gay men have from time to time, since I was like 13 or some shit, hit on me. Dagmar finds every single instance extremely funny and I hate her for it.

Fuck you Dagmar it’s NOT funny!

Okay it’s pretty funny.

Did I mentioned crowded, the sauna's are crowded.

As I think I explained in a previous post at most big sauna’s there are sauna meisters and they, every hour or at the really big ones every half hour, run a special sauna where you rub honey on your naked flesh, rub salt on your naked flesh or for all I know somewhere in northern Germany there is a ‘smack yourself in the face with a dead fish’ sauna. Point is there are special saunas, you have to get there early because they get VERY, in a way that capital letters cannot convey, crowded.

By the time the sauna doors are closed you are packed in like sardines, naked sardines and I don’t know of any other kind. Literally you are squeezed into your space on the sauna bleachers desperately trying not to make skin to skin contact with anyone you aren’t married to.

So this particular sauna was a salt sauna, where you sweat your balls off and then rub salt all over your skin because according to Germany evolution didn’t allow us to shed dead skin cells effectively enough and we need the help of salt. Alternatively my skin feels really smooth and soft after this particular sauna which is why dudes think I’m gay a lot. It’s a lose, lose situation … point is I like the salt sauna.

‘Get to the fucking point’ I can hear you all saying and ‘FUCK you’ is my reply. You get hit on by a gay man while you’re nude with your WIFE LITERALLY glued to your side and then YOU talk about it in a humorous manner.

Okay so during the salt sauna, when you’re rigorously rubbing rock salt all over your body you, and I’m sure you figured it out, can’t do your back. That’s okay though I have Dagmar to do mine and I do hers.

Then it happened.

I speak enough German to order a beer and to prove I don’t speak German. What I mean is, I don’t speak German.

The man next to me wanted me to rub the rock salt on his back. I was naïve enough to, at the time, rationalize this in my

See the guy in the center, the one with the clothes, yeah that the's sauna meister.

head. There are, I assume, plenty of gay saunas in Germany … anyone that was looking for gay sex would never come to these huge, mixed gender saunas looking for gay sex. To this point in my, I guess then 3 years in Germany, I knew the Germans to be fanatical rule followers and I honestly assumed this was another German dedicated to the health benefits of the sauna.

Still though there was the twinkle in his eye. Never ignore a fucking twinkle folks, never.

I rubbed that salt into his back with the vigor of a German. “Do a good job,” I told myself. Work that upper back, scrub the middle back and damn it son don’t skimp on the salt, use some of yours if you have too.

I introduce him to Dagmar shortly thereafter because even I, with the gay radar of a dead raccoon, am starting to get it. I believe he told Dagmar at this point, “You are married to a beautiful man”.

Okay fuck …

Dagmar laughing her exposed boobs off the entire time.

The sauna ends and I think nothing of this episode, other than glad that’s over. She and I exit and shower. She now has wonderfully smooth skin. I now have wonderfully smooth skin and a wife that is in hysterics laughing at me.

Outside of the main sauna area there are, in the summer time, numerous lounge chairs. I mean we all love a cancerous tan right? I do …

As Dagmar and I sunned ourselves, au natural, mister “you are a beautiful man” came back. To again assure Dagmar that she was still married to a beautiful man.

Seriously.

What happens exactly when the whole place goes nude.

What happens when the whole place goes nude is the best, if only, transition to three erections. It’s also telling me this is a four or five part update, not just a three part.

Remember that as soon as the Sauna opens until it closes, most days, there is a clothed part that consists of fun slides, wave pools, mineral baths and then there is the nude side that has, in addition to the sauna’s a large heated pool and a few other things like a massage area and a bar. These are separated by an imaginary line on the floor. Beyond that line everyone is naked, except when they are not. Which is usually. Outside of the sauna or the pool most everyone wears a towel or a robe.

Yeah there’s always some naked dude or 80-year-old woman that’s just said, “fuck it, no one is checking me out anyway,” but generally, everyone wears something.

This, obviously, was not after 7 p.m. on a Saturday. It is however the place we go to.

At approximately 6:55 p.m. though, on the clothed side there’s an announcement over the intercom that I think says “hey clothed people the naked weirdos are about to come over to the clothed side of the place so flee if you want to,” or something like that. And then it just sort of happens, some people leave, some strip, others stray in from the sauna side and by 7:15 it’s a done deal.

Not that exciting except it leads directly to three erections which, I at least, found hysterical.

Again even after 7 p.m. most of the people who are still there remain wrapped in a towel or robe when not swimming or laying in the sun (in the summer it stay light here until almost 10 p.m.).

Most people.

Three erections

I don’t remember what time of the evening it was but it was just after the whole place went nude. While having a cigarette (outdoors – near the snack bar) during one of our trips I noticed three 15 or 16-year-old males seated at a small circular table yelling at each other and apparently masturbating. Yeah, masturbating …

Now before you close your browser and draft an email where you call me gay and/or a disgusting liar hear me out. The three were seated at the table in such a way that they couldn’t see what the other was doing, though it was painfully obvious and the fact that they were yelling at each other made it a train wreck that I could not turn away from.

I should have stamped my cigarette out, fled the German sauna world forever and immediately entered therapy but I was baffled and wanted to see what the fuck they were going to do.

Besides the obvious I mean.

And the yelling? It seemed like encouragement but I have no clue what they were saying because again I don’t speak German but who the HELL encourages their other friends while they are … I know, I know get to the point.

What these three adolescent masterminds had in mind was this. At a certain point in the, literal mind you, circle jerk they stood up, boner all a-poppin and marched directly through main area in what I guess was an attempt to scandalize the masses and or get a ‘rise’ out of my gay friend in the salt sauna. Prank wise I think it’s a 4 out of ten. Balls though? You bet.

Look your ACU, battle dress or ‘look pretty with ear rings’ (yes you Air Force) uniforms are a few things, chief among those things are predictable and easy. If a piece wears out you go to the military clothing store and buy a new one. Camouflage patterns hide dirt and stains. I drove a 1995 Jeep Wrangler for 15 years. The Jeep, which my good friend and co-worker Erika Fields once referred to it as “that thing you drive”, is not known as a smooth ride and it spilled coffee on me every time I drove to work.

Spilling coffee on yourself, in the civilian world, is a turn around and go home, full-blown emergency!

Forget dirt and stains the simple number of choices will make you insane.

This guy designed his own uniforms!

A uniform, no matter if it’s a camouflage based uniform; a uniform for wear in the office or the one this dude has to wear … is still a uniform. There isn’t a choice, even if you are choosing the type of uniform itself, the morning when you get dressed you know exactly what you have to put on.

In the civilian world though…

HOLY FUCK welcome to an infinity of choices. Maggie Menzies warned me about this when I was getting ready to retire from the army and for the first six months after I retired I thought she was a dirty, filthy liar but then one morning in the shower it happened.

“Jesus! What the FUCK am I going to wear?”

Who am I dealing with today is a question that factors in to what you’re going to wear. As does, what am I doing today, where am I doing it and will they make fun of that pink shirt at work? (Hint: They will). It becomes this retardedly complicated question that once answered can be rendered moot by one bump in the road that causes a bit of spilled coffee.

I once worked for a Major who told me a story about his ranger squad, group, cluster (it’s hard to keep these things straight) that was asked to test out a new night vision mount on a helmet. One ranger intentionally banged the mount against the wall and when the company representative complained the major said, hey this shit happens. Point being the stuff the military buys is generally well made.

Civilian clothes on the other hand are scared of sick, dying kittens. Everything tears, snags and pulls apart. I found, early on in my retirement a great pair of Steve Maddenshoes that I LOVED. I LOVED those shoes, I kissed them at night. Everyone complemented me on them. Trouble was they wore out after like a day. I bought

I'm hiding ... so I can destroy your clothes

literally 10 pairs of them before I admitted defeat and realized I was not going to win. Wearing a different pair, of the SAME TYPE OF SHOE, every other day just prolonged the death. They may have looked good but they were made by meth addicted Chinese sweat shop eight year olds that were anxious to get back to their world of warcraft gold-mining jobs.

Those shoes sucked, but I loved them.

Don’t get me started on slacks.

2. Rank … it lets you know so goddamn much.

I don’t care if you were a private or a colonel when you left the military, when you walk into a room you know you’re place. It’s just that easy.

Seriously toss 50 military people into a room and within .0003 seconds they know who is in charge. Hell you know who’s second in charge, who the senior enlisted guy is and who will head up the moral and welfare part of the group. It’s just that simple.

In the civilian world it becomes decision by committee. Everyone’s opinion matters. I think I’ve seen the cleaning lady get asked about her thoughts on an invasion of Iran. Everyone has a voice and it sucks. I’m pretty sure I could tell my boss tomorrow that I think we should consider the feelings of puppies when we go forward with the plan and he’d have to pause to think about it. In the Army you’d be stuck doing pushups, which are GOOD FOR YOU.

3. You’re generally taken care of:

You are. You’re taken care of. Fuck you, you are. Everyone has a story about how the military fucked them. Here’s a stop on the clue train for you, you weren’t and you ignored some key bit of information that allowed you to feel like you were fucked while the U.S. Military put on kid gloves and tried to make it as easy as possible for you.

And you fucked it up after all that effort.

I have dug down into more people’s lives, asking where that last dollar went when I was in the military than I care to think about.

“Why are you buying the good cheese when WIC approves the other cheese? I’m asking because you’re in debt and I want to know, fuck you answer me.” That’s a legitimate question in the army if you’re having financial trouble. Your leaders can step in and tell you that you’re making dumb decisions with your money. They can and literally do make you write out your budget.

Sure it looks good but is it W.I.C. good?

They can’t make you buy WIC cheese but they can call you an idiot for not doing so.

This is just one example of hundreds, if not thousands, of things the military does in an effort to take care of their service members

In the civilian world NO ONE GIVES A SHIT. They say they do. Hell they might try to make an effort toward helping you but at the end of the day, after 5 p.m., it’s your problem.

Living in a cardboard box? Fuck you be in on time.

Daughter dying from cancer? So sorry but while you’re at her bedside don’t run out of time off.

I exaggerate but the military puts so much effort into seeing you succeed that you never realize it and when you do realize it. It’s too late.

4. Organizational predictability:

Even the most super-duper, ultra, if you read this blog we’ll kill you, secret ninja military person, if they’re married, has a spouse that knows they might be gone tomorrow and might be gone for a year or forever. The average person in the military KNOWS full well when they are leaving for deployment or to change duty locations. The military takes great pains to let you know so the process is less painful for you, your family and your organization. As a squad leader all the way up to the very top movement from one station to another, or from one job to another, is predictable to a large degree. Knowing that your personnel action specialist is leaving in 6 months makes replacing that person that much easier.

But in the civilian world it’s like a bomb is dropped, mostly. Civilians can, and do, out of nowhere come up to their bosses and say, “Hey, I love it here but I’ve got a job on the other side of the world and they want me there tomorrow so we need to have the going away lunch now.” Meaning the organization now has to function one person down and, perhaps, has to operate without a key set of skills.

There are generally exceptions to any rule so if you want to think you’re a special little butterfly and one of these didn’t apply to you fine, generally though it’s spot on.

Now there are a myriad of ways that life outside of the military is better/easier/whatever but that’s another update.